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- National Statistical Office publishes 'Women's Lives
Seen through Statistics 2003'
An increasing number of newly-weds are of the same age or
younger-husband-older-wife couples. Couples where the husbands
are older have been steadily decreasing, recording 74.1% of
first marriages in 2002 compared to 82.2% in 1990. On the
other hand, same-aged couples increased 5.2 percentage points
in the same period from 9.1% to 14.3%, and couples where the
wives are older have increased 2.8 percentage points from
8.8% to 11.6%. These statistics imply a shift in marriage
customs in Korean society.
On July 2, the Korea National Statistical Office published
a report entitled 'Women's Lives Seen through Statistics 2003,'
providing a sweeping look at the changing status of women
in families and society throughout their life cycles.
According to the report, the average ages of women and men
who entered their first marriage in 2002 were 27 and 29.8
respectively, both showing a 0.2-year increase from the previous
year. The average ages of women and men when they file for
divorce are 37.1 and 40.6 respectively, and they are 37.9
and 42.2 years old when they remarry. So on the average, both
men and women are divorcing and remarrying at a later age.
Among first-marriage couples, cases where the wife is 1 to
2 years older accounted for 8.9% and where the wife is 3~5
years older 2.2%. And cases where it is the first marriage
for both the husband and wife decreased from 89.3% to 79%.
In contrast, cases where it is a remarriage for only the wife
increased from 2.3% to 5.6%, and cases where it is a remarriage
for both spouses increased from 4.7% to 11.6%. Cases where
it is a remarriage for only the husband showed a slight increase,
from 3.6% to 3.8%.
As for longevity, the report showed that women lived longer
than men but suffered from worse health. Women took up 60.6%
and men 39.4% of the population aged 65 and above, meaning
that among those aged 65 and above, there were only 65 men
to every 100 women, that is, 35 more women than men. Among
the women registered as cancer patients in 2001, the biggest
proportion was of women aged 60∼69 at 33.3%, followed by 50∼59
at 23.8% and 70∼79 at 18.1%. Male cancer patients aged 60∼69
recorded 22.9% of all male cancer patients, 10.4 percentage
points lower than women in the same age bracket.
Statistics also showed that women's academic achievements
and economic participation are on the rise. 36.9% of Masters
graduates in 2002 were women, and they took up 23.2% of Doctorate
degree achievers in the same year. Discipline-wise, women
accounted for 64.9% of the Masters degrees in Arts and Sports,
followed by 57.3% in Education, 39.0% in Medicine, and 21.1%
in Sciences. Women participating in economic activities increased
from 39.3% in 1970 to 49.7% in 2002, showing a 10.4 percentage
point increase. The same statistics for men showed a 3.1-percentage-point
decrease from 77.9% to 74.8%, making women's achievements
even more impressive by contrast. In terms of wages, however,
women's salaries are 63.9% of men's, showing a decrease from
the 64.3% of 2001. Also, among the female workforce, 29.1%
have temporary jobs and 13.1% are paid by the hour or by day.
The same statistics for men are 17.0% and 9.5% respectively,
confirming that most of the female workforce is subject to
irregular employment.
Statistics also prove that women's welfare is still not up
to standard: among workers registered on public pension in
2001, only 31% were women, which is only half the men, and
women only receive 28.2% of the total pension currently being
given to retirees.
As for women's safety concerns, 64.4% of women aged 15 and
above replied that harm from crime was their biggest fear,
a much higher percentage than the 48.2% of men who gave the
same answer. Women who actually experienced prank or threatening
phone calls accounted for 30.8% of the women respondents.
And 58.8% of women said that there were certain places they
feared passing through after dark, again a much higher percentage
than the 37.8% for men. Asked how they responded to such fears,
55.5% said that they passed through anyway, 14.3% said they
made a detour even though it was time-consuming, 11.9% said
they passed through only in daylight or postponed the trip,
and 8.4% said they asked someone to accompany them.
<reported by Dong Kim Sung-hye dong@womennews.co.kr>
◀ On June 27, the women workers of Lotte
Hotel who had exposed the sexual harassment they had suffered
at work donated 10 million Won from the compensation they
had received from the hotel to the Research Institute for
the Rights of the Disabled.
"We agreed to use the compensation money we received
in a meaningful way."
On July 27, the victims of the Lotte Hotel sexual harassment
case donated 10 million Won from the compensation they received
from the hotel to the Research Institute for the Rights of
the Disabled.
Wu Myung-sim, member of the committee set up to deal with
the case, said, "We didn't sue the hotel for the money
in the first place, so it's only natural we use the compensation
for a meaningful cause. We hope it'll be used to protect the
rights of disabled women victimized by sexual violence."
46 women members of the Lotte Hotel labor union filed a lawsuit
in 2000, claiming that they had suffered repeated sexual harassment
from hotel executives and demanding 1.76 billion Won in damages.
In November last year, the Court ordered the hotel to pay
the victims 50 million Won.
Says Wu, "Through the lawsuit, we showed that corporate
responsibility for its employees extends beyond working hours
to company outings and such. But one limitation we faced was
that we weren't able to make the company accountable for stemming
sexual harassment that occurs on a daily basis, such as browsing
pornographic websites in the office in front of women employees."
Wu also mentioned that although the 46 women had not decided
in detail how they wanted to spend the rest of the money,
they wished to continue funding efforts to protect women's
rights.
In February, the Korea Women's Association United lauded the
efforts of 50 Lotte Hotel women labor union members in "winning
a lawsuit that acknowledged for the first time in Korea the
responsibility of companies in preventing and dealing with
sexual harassment in the workplace," and awarded them
the Stepping Stone Prize.
<reported by Na Shin Ah-Ryeung arshin@womennews.co.kr>
◀ Ko Eun Gwang-sun / Member of the Steering
Committee, Alliance for the Establishment of a New Reform
Party
In the preface of the 25th issue of Figures and Ideologies
published in January, Kang Jun-man wrote that the biggest
responsibility of the Roh administration is political reform,
which is the call of the times. He is absolutely right, since
the political climate in Korea is far from stable.
Intellectuals consistently put the blame on political parties,
criticizing the undemocratic structure of one figure bossing
the whole party, the top-down decision-making structure, and
the reluctance of members to pay membership fees. But what
Kang asks of intellectuals who yearn for political reform
is to join political parties and personally right all the
wrongs they've been pointing out.
Spitting and cursing at politics will not bring about any
fundamental changes to it, but if all the citizens become
party members, then politics will become "everyday life,"
driving out political scheming and opportunistic attitudes.
So to make political reform a reality, Kang appeals to all
the citizens to storm the political parties. (Kang is a member
of the People's Party for Reform)
Recently, with The Women's News in the lead, there
have been numerous discussions aimed at jump-starting women's
political empowerment. There has also been an agreement to
launch a Women's Alliance (tentative name) for the 2004 General
Election. With the Democratic Alliance for Women's Political
Empowerment in the lead, national women's organizations such
as the Korean Women's Association United, Korea National Council
of Women and Korea Women Voters' League have suggested joining
together to form a preparatory committee that will be in charge
of voters' campaigns to improve the election system, analysis
of political candidates, establishment of a political alliance
for women that encompasses more than 500 women groups across
the nation, and discovering and supporting women candidates
to run for the election. There was a suggestion to launch
a 1000-Won-per-donor fund-raising drive to nurture and support
women politicians.
But they are overlooking the fact that the political landscape
is changing with astonishing speed. The biggest change would
be that the "top-down" is changing into "bottom-up."
This means that the "influence" that people can
wield from outside the party will be increasingly limited.
Or that influence may even be nil. Candidates for proportional
representatives, not to mention regional representatives,
will be nominated by a vote among bona fide party members,
so no matter how long you wait outside the party preening
away with professional knowledge and remarkable capacities,
you will not get the chance to run in the elections if you
are not a party member. All candidates have to compete to
win the votes of party members in order to become the party-nominated
candidate. So no matter how hard you worked to pool political
funds to support your run for office, it will all be for nothing
if you lose the in-party bid to be nominated a candidate.
Quantitative expansion brings about qualitative enhancement,
but the accession to the party by a handful of politically
conscious individuals will not give us that. Not 500 but 5,000
women groups can form an alliance and lobby for political
empowerment from the outside, but it might actually be more
effective for ordinary members of 50 or even just 5 major
women groups to join a political party. No matter how loud
the voices outside the party, it will not have any influence
on the secret ballot by party members.
The era of bona fide party members well-established in the
party has come. As Kang Jun-man said, the only way to create
a new political culture is for countless citizens to storm
the political parties. The same goes for the political empowerment
of women. Let's not lose the opportunity to charge. Into the
political parties!!
- put into effect since February by Sangju Branch of Daegu
District Prosecution Office
The system of suspending indictment of those guilty of domestic
violence on the condition of counseling has gained public
attention as it has proven to be more effective than punishment
in preventing domestic violence. This 'suspension of indictment
conditional on counseling' system sends the husbands for counseling
rather than to prison, thereby protecting the victims while
lessening hostility of the aggressors.
In order to deal with problems faced by youths and women more
effectively, the Sangju Branch of the Daegu District Prosecution
Office (branch headed by Kim Kang-wook) set up, based on the
regulations of the Act on the Prevention of Domestic Violence,
several counseling centers within the prosecution office to
provide counseling related to domestic violence such as family
counseling, family law consultation and youth counseling.
When a victim of domestic violence makes a report to the counseling
center, the center will collect evidence to back up the report
and then interview the aggressor. The center will explain
that he is forbidden by law to beat his family members, and
warn him that he will face serious legal consequences if he
repeats the offense. After the interview, the center checks
on the family on a weekly basis and appeals to the victim
to report any repeat offenses.
As for domestic violence cases that the police hand over to
the prosecution after police investigations, the prosecutor
in charge will suspend indictment conditional on counseling
and hand over the case to the counseling center. In the legal
proceedings, the judge will take into account the written
opinion of the counselor who was in charge of the case.
Court proceedings for most domestic violence cases take from
three to six months. The counseling center revealed that the
aggressors who were granted conditional suspension of indictment
usually turned over a new leaf in a couple of months. Says
a counselor, "The system was established for the first
time in Korea, and it is quite well-received by victims of
domestic violence. I hope the system will spread to other
regions as well."
<reported by Shim Kwon Eun-ju ejskwon@hanmail.net>
(The Women's News http://www.womennews.co.kr)
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